5 Nov
2011
5 Nov
'11
4:18 p.m.
On 11/5/2011 3:21 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
No. You don't know what you're talking about because, first, you
took exception to a very well-known situation that keeps popping up on
eBay (VS4000-96s selling at high prices) and asked for an explanation,
and rejected the (correct) explanation that you were given because you
thought it was unreasonable. (something that doesn't change the facts)
*bzzzt* Clueless alert #1.
*bzzt* Asshole alert # 1
You have this wrong. I said I wondered what it was they were running
and using them for and argued maybe it was time to port it. I know there
are pdp 11 still running things.
Next, you took exception to the notion that the military runs
hardware that was made before last week, and loudly asserted that the
idea of the military "still" running VAXen is either untrue or a bad
idea. (it's neither)
*bzzzt* Clueless alert #2.
I said I hated to think they were still using VAXStation 4000 to run
critical defense things. When did I ever doubt they weren't ? Did you
even read anything or just decide what it said before hand.
After that, you suggested that *I* don't know what I'm talking about
because I know that the military runs VAXen (ha, I installed some of
them!) and believe that it's ok to do so.
*bzzzt* Clueless alert #3.
And I said that where ?
Next, you apparently assumed that my "four Ubuntu installs within
the past week" meant "four total" (it was in the past six days), and
that they were desktops. They weren't. This doesn't set off the
clueless alert; you can't expect to know what my day-to-day activities
are, so I'll let you off for free on that one.
and you don't know mine. Anyone that proclaims Ubuntu installs in anyway
as something I sould be impressed by just loses points. It was was just
the ridiculous to even mention it. My mother could have installed ubuntu
reasonably well as it is now. I don't actually really even care what
your experience is. It is really besides the point. I just found the
Ubuntu thing funny. I feel I can safely say a VMS 5 server would be a
serious risk on any exposed network.
Next, you latch onto someone's mention of a VERY old release of VMS,
which happens to be rock solid (if a bit slow), and assert that, oh
good heavens, there are bugs in it. Surprise, there are bugs in
everything! I challenge you to break into one. You won't. (but if
somehow you do, I'll send you a case of your favorite beer, seriously)
*bzzzt* Clueless alert #4.
That was actually the whole point. My comment was about the guy saying 5
was secure not VMS in general.
Lets do this. Lets load a VAXStation up with 5 and patch it with what
security patches were made for it. Set it ouside a firewall accessible
to the internet. One login account with no high level privileges and
we'll place it outside a firewall. You will put on it a text file
containing every credit card numbers your family has (along with CIVs),
all of their social security numbers, their personal info, all your bank
account numbers, and then we will post the login info to a couple of
hacker boards. How about that ? I can probably dig up a 3100 for this
purpose. Lets see what happens.
Why do I have to personally hack something to declare it a security risk
? It's obviously a security risk to put, a VMS 5 box on the internet
with sensitive data on it. I don't get paid to hack systems but, I
certainly have to secure them.
VMS may not be whiz-bang shiny and exciting to today's crop of
clove-smoking vegetarian twenty-somethings who spend their day hacking
together Python and Ruby on Rails scripts for web apps, but it was
built from the ground up as a commercial OS with rock-solid
reliability and security as a primary consideration. Like anything
else, there are bugs in it. But the simple fact remains that it's
damn near the hardest to break into of any of the common OSs that
anyone knows about.
-Dave
Man I'm like almost 50 years old and been working on computers forever.
I only wish I was clove-smoking twenty-something. You keep bad mouthing
people that hack web stuff but, that's what the internet is now. When's
the last time you gave someone a shell account ?